


Third Time's A Charm

by Darkflower



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Harm to Children, Kidnapping, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-11 04:59:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8954596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkflower/pseuds/Darkflower
Summary: This shouldn't keep happening. Chris shouldn't look forward to it. It is wrong on so many levels and it is stupid and Chris is far too old for this or Derek is far too young for this and so very vulnerable and fragile underneath everything that even to think about this is a sin...just no...it cannot be happening.........and yet it does!





	1. Chapter 1

The first time it happens, he can blame it on adrenaline. Well, that and the raw vulnerability on Derek’s face.

He has seen a number of emotions on Derek – murderously angry, bitingly sarcastic, furious, smug, cocky, terrifying, even blank hopelessness, but has never seen him in tears. And seeing him break down like that, with all his defences gone out of the window, devastated beyond words...well, what can he say, Chris is only human.

It is a mistake.

It flashes in neon sign above their heads even as their hands are frantic on each other to try to find purchases wherever they can and their lips are meeting with a bruising intensity that is less of a kiss and more of a desperate, desperate fight for dominion, a blinding need of letting go of pent up emotions built up for years, layers and layers of mistrust, judgemental stares and cruel barbs and downright viciousness and so many other things that Chris has lost count.

They thought it was an in and out job – handling a pair of wendigos. After all they are a pair of a hardened hunter and a werewolf, the only one left in this continent with the power of a full shift. They stared at each other once they realised they had been stalking the same target. Then, after so many times of fighting back to back, with saving each other’s lives in countless ways, with guzzling down beer with a pizza after a particularly hard-fought battle in Derek’s loft or Chris’ home (it just happened ok, it was not that Chris had purposefully followed Derek or that had invited him at his place) for they felt ancient among a bunch of teenagers they both are too fond of to let die – their reaction was pretty different than what it would have been a couple of year ago.

Derek shrugged and resumed his vigilance and Chris crouched down beside him. The fact that Derek actually moved to make room for him was a testament to how their relationship had evolved.

They hadn’t bothered to call for a back-up. Both of them are too protective of their precious pack and thought their lives are expendable for there was nobody waiting for them at home.

Huh!

Chris Argent never thought he should feel a strange kinship for Derek Hale of all people.

So they charged at the two wendigos puttering about inside the house discussing how to ensnare their next batch of victims and being so blasé about it that made their blood boil.

They were not exactly bothering to be subtle.

As it turned out, there were twelve.

Neither Chris, nor Derek had any clue as to how they could mask their scents or their voices from a pure-blooded werewolf of Derek’s calibre, but it happened.

It all go downhill from there, predictably.

Derek manages to take down three of them single-handedly. Chris doesn’t have the luxury to stand by and watch the smooth muscles and sinews move sinfully under the moss green Henley (it was fascinating, like watching a wild creature on the loose, dangerous and beautiful in a way no human being can ever hope to be). Chris doesn’t know since when it started become dangerously fascinating rather than plain dangerous in his mind but it did, somewhere along the line, fighting for the same cause, against the same enemies, in between one breath and the next, there had been flashes, the way the weres move, half beast and half people, feral yet controlled enough to know the friend from the foe, and with it comes the sheer gratefulness when the inhuman reflexes catch hold of a stray claw or fangs of the enemies which could have been fatal for an ordinary human.

But among them all, Derek somehow stood apart, always and without fail.

There is something in the way he moves – that it is hard to look away once you are transfixed. And Chris has found himself transfixed, more than once, even in the middle of a battle. He has always attributed it to an objective admiration of a wild thing whose very beauty lies in the wildness.

Derek Hale is beautiful – the sudden epiphany has hit him not quite like a car crash, but a mellow wonder.

And that was that. It was just a realisation not unlike the one when he finally got it why him and Derek kept on being partnered naturally, falling into each other’s orbit, ending up fighting back to back without breaking their stride or follow each other home to have a beer or Derek rescuing his half-drunk ass from the bar on some days (anniversaries are hard and birthdays are harder) – the realisation that Derek is his best friend, if he has got one nowadays.

It is the way their eyes meet over Scott of Stiles’ head sometimes during a pack meet whenever someone mentions something that triggers memories, and from there it ripples outward in pain-drunk waves. For Derek it is easy with his supernatural senses to hear his heartbeat speed up the moment somebody mentions his dead daughter in the passing, but Chris, being a human has learnt Derek’s tell – the tick in his jaw, the imperceptible twitch of the fingers, the subtle shifting from one foot to the other – when somebody mentions Kate or the fire or his family or simply death by fire.

So his former enemy turned best friend, his pack-mate, his one stark reminder of his family’s burden of guilt, the one survivor of the crimes committed by his darling sister is the one who now goes down with a cry of pain as three wendigos descend upon him like vultures feeding on a proud, wounded lion, caught up in a hunter’s net. Derek manages to claw a smaller one with one hand and dislodges another with a well-aimed punch that, going by the sound of it, breaks its face literally.

But there are simply too many.

Derek slashes at them, roaring, a sound that ricochets through the room, setting Chris in motion.

Point, aim and shoot. Point, aim and shoot. Make every bullet count. They are too busy with the bigger threat in the room and now is your only chance.

He plunges the dagger in the eyes of the wendigo that has tried to sneak from behind. The creature drops down with a satisfactory scream which means he is not getting up any sooner.

One leaps on him from the fucking ceiling. Chris shoots, but it is a second too late, shark-like teeth one inch within his jugular and Chris’s back hits the floor with a thud.

So, this is the end for even when his hand automatically seeks out the knife, he knows the creature is probably already dead, but in dying it has effectively pinned him down under its heavy weight. As it is, it has already cut off air supply to his lungs and Chris would like nothing other than to shake off the dead weight on him, but he is momentarily stunned. Must have cracked at least one rib there other than the broken wrist, given by the unnatural angle at which it is trapped between his and the wendigo’s chests.

He tries to suck in air before his vision is going blank. His right hand is still clutching the gun and so he has nothing better to do than to point and aim again. He can do it, a clean headshot at the bitch that has been chewing on Derek’s throat and looks up for a moment to stare straight at Chris while the other two are pinning the wolf down. He will do it if it is the last thing he does.

It goes straight through the middle of the forehead in uncanny precision and another wendigo drops dead.

God there are so many and Derek is going to have to fight them all alone.

Chris’ eyes droop close in spite of himself. Something snarls by his side and then that something is hauling up the huge wendigo off him. He sucks in the oxygen in grateful abandon and is opening his eyes again.

The black wolf spares only a quarter of a second to cock his huge head and assess the damage, and then he is bounding off, snarling and leaping at the cannibalistic creatures like he was born to do it.

Chris sits up slowly and draws his last dagger from the boot for there is no time to reload and this time he doesn’t wait until the wendigo is on him. The blade plunges into its chest soundlessly, the special wolfsbane with which it is coated immediately making its presence known by spreading in a web of black veins on the bare chest of the creature.

And just like that the fight is over.

Derek’s fur ripples and disappears as a dark head and glistening tan skin takes over the black mass, the triskelion standing out in the middle of the shoulder-blades where power resides in proud abandon. Fur disappears further to form a tapered waist, a pair of perfectly round buttocks, thighs corded with muscle, legs long and graceful ending up with toes pink and perfect and out of every feature of the body seem to be the most vulnerable ones against the cold floor now slippery with blood.

Chris has seen Derek nude enough that it is perfectly normal for him to just walk over to the man and hand him over something, a jacket or a blanket or whatever he can get his hands on. Derek usually straightens right up and takes it from him or Scott or Malia without somehow making it awkward.

Derek is not getting up right now.

He is, in fact sitting on his haunches, looking down at something.

Chris advances cautiously because it can be a wendigo which is still alive and they cannot quite kill it in cold blood. In that case they have to decide what to do with it.

Derek’s shoulders are shaking and Chris stops in his tracks. There is blood smeared on his back and sides and Chris is pretty sure there are gashes all across his body which are still healing.

He thinks about a quick searching through the house for a blanket or probably a trip to Derek’s car where he keeps spare clothes in his trunk. But it is parked one block away and Derek is sort of...he doesn’t know what is wrong, but Chris cannot bring himself to leave him now.

For even with his back towards him he is somehow looking impossibly forlorn.

He stalks forward more resolutely, reloading the Glock with one hand and when he finally discovers what Derek is doing, he feels the air knocked out of his lungs once again.

There is a body in his arms, half on his lap and half on the ground, still alive somehow, with vicious claw marks across her small throat. Her face is entirely human now with short black hair creating a halo around her pale face, bright hazel eyes looking up unseeingly.

Her lips are quivering and Chris leans down unconsciously to hear her.

“I want my mom.” She whispers. Impossibly lucid.

Then she stills.

She doesn’t look more than twelve.

Chris sees it in Derek’s eyes, the gut-wrenching awareness and the recognition and sees him to recoil from it as his hands tighten around the small body of the dead wendigo.

Hell, no!

This bunch of monsters have been kidnapping babies and kids aged between two months to ten years, luring them with cookies, probably using their little ones like this one to instil confidence. Then they would imprison their victims at the basement, feeding upon them slowly. Cutting off one arm here and one leg there. Young flesh is delicious after all and they don’t need preservative if the victim can be kept alive as long as possible. They even treated the blood-loss and kept them well-fed. They would have hidden in plain sight for they didn’t forage their food from Beacon Hills. They have been careful not to alert the very capable sheriff’s department which has in-built radar for supernatural crimes.

They took them from nearby towns or from different counties so that they can stay undiscovered.

It is just mere chance that one of their little victims escapes and even with one arm missing, lives to tell the tale when Derek discovers the terrified kid wandering alone in the Preserve in one full-moon night.

The pack has been deliberating on what to do about them.

Chris has been frustrated with the delay knowing full well each passing day is costing a body part and a life of an innocent child, but Scott has never been fond of doling out death sentences even when it is glaringly clear that is what is the need of the hour.

Derek has always taken a straightforward route and doesn’t care what people think of his decisions as long as it is ok by his unique brand of ethics.

Right now it is shattering into pieces in front of Chris’ eyes.

Chris falls to his knees and tries to pry the body away from Derek who just clutches it a little harder.

“Derek.” Chris places a hand on Derek’s arm.

“She called her Amy.”

Derek is not looking at him. He is staring ahead, vacantly, at some spot over his shoulder and then he just knows it from the way Derek pronounced it.

That he knows that name – a sister or a cousin or a beloved aunt or one of the people close to his heart whom he lost in that terrible fire or probably a best friend he had to leave behind and lose eventually after the upheaval in his life.

Derek looks down and closes her eyes with a gentle sweep of his long fingers.

He is shaking again and it is worse than before for Chris can hear his teeth chattering.

“Derek!”

Chris is alarmed now. He doesn’t know how Derek grieves. Or if he at all let himself grieve. Chris is not unaware of the mountain of guilt the man is buried under.

The man. The boy.

Derek is still a boy.

To him.

Impossibly young and fragile right now.

Chris grabs the body of the wendigo and gently tugs. Derek makes a wounded noise, still not looking at him.

Chris sets her on the ground, reverently. For no matter what the dead deserves respect.

“Derek.” He calls for a third time, sterner and more deliberate and Derek’s eyes snap up and lock with his.

God damn!

His entire heart is open and pouring right through the green-hazel of his eyes. And his heart is broken and trampled upon. Over and over and over until there should be nothing left of it.

Chris cradles Derek’s face, suddenly afraid that he is losing him.

“I killed her.” Derek’s voice breaks on the last syllable.

“You had to.” Chris says, firm and authoritative. “They would have killed us otherwise and what would have happened to those young kids locked in the basement?”

“No...I...” Derek shakes his head, stubble tickling Chris’ palms as he moves his head.

His lips wobble and he seems to be completely unable to form words, but the deep misery reflected in his eyes are breaking Chris’ heart. He doesn’t understand it, why should it affect it at the molecular level.

He only knows that he feels something for this brave, selfless, beautiful boy on his knees, the one who thinks himself damaged beyond repair and is the first one to throw his body heedlessly between the oncoming danger and his pack-mate or even a complete stranger or a once-enemy, the one who always thinks the worst of himself and sees the best in others , tries to save the innocent even when his own innocence was stolen from him so brutally and there was nobody to save him or cut him any slack for it later.

“Listen to me.” Chris tightens his grip on Derek’s face. “I know what you are thinking and don’t, I repeat, don’t go there.”

Derek’s skin feels cold to touch. Chris wonders what it means, but it can be nothing good.

“You have done what is needed to be done. You have saved a lot of people Derek. Kids. These people feed on kids and babies. This was not YOUR Amy. This was a monster.”

Derek’s eyes spill over this time and he squeezes them shut, like it is painful to hear those words.

His eyes crinkle at the corner and Chris wants to smoothen down the skin and to stop him from hurting and to stop him from spiralling down into a vortex of guilt and to make him smile again, even the cocky smirk he sometimes sports which he hates so much.

Anything other than this!

Gutted, wrecked, utterly devastated.

Anything.

“I have a feeling that I am a monster too.” Derek whispers. “Or why won’t I feel anything when I take a life, however undeserving it may be.”

Chris scoots closer to Derek instinctively, wanting to shield him from the accusation even though it comes from himself.

“I am the one responsible for everything you went through.”

Derek’s eyes fly open to stare at him and they are red-rimmed and watery still.

“I am sorry that I couldn’t stop Kate from hurting you the way that she did. I am sorry that you had to lose so much so young. I am sorry for bullying you when you were at your lowest. I am so very sorry, but I can’t avoid my responsibility in all these.”

Derek is still shaking but his eyes are registering more confusion than guilt and that he will take anyday.

“Don’t you think I have every right to think myself a pathetic piece of shit for ruining your life so or for looking the other way when my family destroyed you, piece by fucking piece? Don’t you think I am a monster too?”

“No.” Derek’s breathing hitches. “You were right when you tried to kill me. You should have. Not my family though for they were good, but something must be wrong with me. Nothing good ever –”

He breaks off, breath hitching in his throat.

Chris is so close that he can count the individual eyelashes framing Derek’s eyes.

“You are surrounded with goodness.” Chris’ voice is fierce. “Your pack, your surrogate family, their admiration and their faith in you and your unconditional love for them, for what they stand for.”

Chris inhales and there it is, the unique smell of Derek and it startles him that it is so achingly familiar, now made more potent with the exposed skin and the close proximity between them.

“And your heart. Your heart is where the goodness resides Derek. Your heart is beautiful Derek, like the rest of you.”

Derek looks stunned. There is no other word for it. He looks completely bowled over and though Chris is acutely aware of the naked torso almost touching his own and the dead wendigos surrounding them and their victims waiting to be rescued at the basement, all he can see now is Derek’s eyes – like a lifeline thrown while swimming against the current.

“M-my mom,” Derek stammers, “she told me that...after...”

“Yeah? Because it is true.”

“After I took the first innocent life.” Derek finishes, his gaze turned piercing within moments.

“Still true.” Chris doesn’t know why he says it. He should be disgusted, horrified, but he is convinced Derek is not evil, cannot be even if he tries to. “You didn’t mean it to happen. And you mourn that one life in your every breath.”

“I choked her to death.”

“Why?”

Derek searches in his face for something.

“Because she was in pain and she begged me to.”

“Then you showed her a mercy a more selfish person wouldn’t have been able to.”

“But I was the reason she was in pain. I tried to turn her into a werewolf, but she rejected the bite.”

Chris sighs.

“And how old were you then?”

“Fifteen.” Derek says after a beat.

“You must have cared for her a great deal.” His thumb is moving across Derek’s cheekbones in an unconscious gesture and Derek almost leans into it.

Derek holds his stares while more tears spill from his eyes in silent misery.

"Well?" Chris asks again. 

“I loved her.”

Chris has never seen something so beautifully broken in his life.

He doesn’t even know what he is doing before he is leaning in and brushing Derek’s lips with his own for the need to let the other know is overwhelming.

That he is worthy.

That he is beautiful.

That he is everything good and sweet.

That there are people who will give their lives to see one tiny flash of his smile that lights up his lovely face.

People like him.

Old and greedy and battle-hardened.

As if the boy hasn’t been preyed upon enough by a number of people already, taking advantage of the gentle heart that loves with the fierceness of a...of a wolf.

Shit!

Chris panics and rears back. Derek’s eyes are huge and full of something nameless.

“I am so sorry. That was completely out of bounds. I am so –”

 

And never in his life has anybody shut him up more deliciously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read my original fantasy novel on my website [here](https://www.theauthorkamalika.org/).


	2. Chapter 2

The second time it happens, it was totally Derek’s fault.

“Dude, let me get this straight,” Stiles bulldozes over the cacophony as everybody is yelling at the same time.

The pack has gathered at Chris’ house. Though it usually takes place at Derek’s loft, they take turn to offer the use of their home for the meeting. It is Chris’ turn today and no Chris has zero qualms to be a part of it now, nearly two years after he helped them track down his sister in the Aztec temple at Mexico.

He stands beside them, human and proud, knowing that he belongs. He is grateful to them for they need his wisdom, his knowledge, his level-headedness.

He is still a hunter driven by the motto his daughter taught him.

_We protect them who cannot protect themselves._

He cannot see them without remembering her. In fact he remembers her in every breath he takes and sometimes, in his darker days, he thinks how unnatural it is that a father should have to bury his daughter. The only thing that helps him tide over the acute emptiness in his chest and makes him trudge on is the pack, their need for him, their understanding and compassion.

That and Derek. The wolf with whom he has been spending increasingly more and more time. In the last two years after Derek returned to Beacon Hills on Scott’s request, they have been gravitating towards each other naturally. Being the last scions of their bloodline, carrying a huge burden of guilt that simply cannot be wished away, looking after and caring for the same bunch of kids – Derek, Chris have become, Derek and Chris, somewhere along the line.

It probably started a long time back when they fought the nogitsune together, but Chris thinks the foundation of a deeper friendship was laid when Chris took upon himself to train Derek, right where Braeden left. Being a badass wolf who is almost as powerful as an alpha even though he is technically a beta doesn’t teach him to fight automatically. Also, Chris pointed out they would have to be prepared for all the eventualities.

He would never forget Derek falling easily into the role of a general, even though Scott was the true alpha, when they were attacked by the murdering horde during the deadpool incidence. He would never forget Derek’s speech, the conviction in his voice, the fire blazing in his eyes – as he said how it was time they send a message to people who were out to hunt and kill them instead of getting slaughtered.

Chris admired him then. Admired his gritty courage and the impossible strength of mind because Derek knew his days were numbered as a banshee had already predicted his death. Still he would fight on until his last breath.

The admiration only deepened as he got stabbed by the berserkers and his last words to his friends were that he was ok and that they should go help Scott and that he would be right behind them.

The admiration turned to wonder as Derek turned into a magnificent wolf, tearing Kate apart and later crushing the skulls of the berserkers with bare hands.

When he came back, Chris wouldn’t take any chance for he realized his former arch enemy was now somebody he deeply cared for. He wouldn’t want a repeat performance of Mexico when he saw the light leaving Derek’s eyes.

It was only then that Chris happened to stumble upon the fact that Derek Hale has a killer sense of humour and though it is drier than the Sahara he can be in fact hilarious if he wants to be. He comes to know little tidbits about him, like how he has a sweet tooth and can bake like a pro and how he prefers jazz and soft rock over pop and how he hates video games because it gives him headaches. That he is very good at chess and almost at par with Chris. That even though he is a high-school drop-out he is extremely well-read and by no means stupid. That his favourite author is Fyodor Dostoyevski and yes he reads him in Russian.

Translation spoils the tone. He commented once after Chris had discovered a battered copy of _À la recherche du temps perdu_ (Remebrance of Things Past) and Derek had replied him in perfect French.

Derek knows seventeen languages.

He translates books during his spare time. It provides him a side-income though he hardly needs it. Derek is actually loaded but he lives like an ascetic because he doesn’t like to think where the money comes from.

Chris has opened up in equal measure. Talking with Derek is easy for he is, not surprisingly, a very good listener. But what bowls him over is Derek’s complete lack of judgment. He listens to Chris patiently when he goes on a rant about how many ways he has fucked up and would offer no comment or snarky comebacks like had the realization come a bit early Derek’s family would have survived. He would never remind Chris how he bullied Derek, shoved him into a corner, chased him like a rabid dog when all he had wanted was to protect the town he, Chris Argent, was in fact meant to protect. Derek evidently has better manners than that. But Chris doesn’t. So he would dig into old scabs and ask Derek, especially when he is very drunk, why Derek would not try to kill him or hurt Allison (which he could have easily done, since she had no training or didn’t even know what a werewolf was) or went after Kate.

Derek would usually change the topic of conversation or duck his head and remain silent.

Only once did he let Chris see a glimpse of what had been going through Derek’s mind even during those darker times.

“I gave her a ride from Lydia’s party.” He said abruptly.

“What? When” There was no need to clarify whom they were talking about.

“The night of the full moon after Scott was turned.” He sipped his beer nonchalantly like it was not a piece of information that was again realigning Chris’ world view.

“Why would you do that?” There was a tiny part of Chris that wanted to hear Derek wanted revenge for his family. That he wanted to use Allison as leverage...

“I wanted her as far away from Scott as possible and her home was the safest place in the entire Beacon Hills.”

....hmm, apparently no such luck. Also, now he feels guilty he can think something like that about Derek, like he doesn't know the man so well already. 

“Did she know you back then?”

“No.”

“Why would she go with you? She knows better than to trust a stranger.”

Derek looked down at the table and Chris let his eyes rove over Derek. He was wearing his favourite dark leather jacket and his face was clean-shaven for a change. He had only a ribbed white tank top underneath and Chris could see his shapely collar-bones beneath the upturned collars.

Objectively he knew Derek had a body carved by angels. He had seen him gloriously naked, completely unabashed in his skin, when he had turned back from wolf. He had seen him shirtless and dripping with sweat practicing lethal moves in the terrace of his loft, moves that Chris had taught him.

Objectively Chris knew Derek Hale was hot like burning sun with just a hint of threat lurking underneath.

So Chris knew why and couldn’t quite bring himself to blame his daughter. He was young and rebellious once and so he knew the feeling of giving into danger, willingly.

“I don’t know Chris.” Derek finally answered him with complete honesty. “But maybe because she was pissed at Scott and was not thinking clearly.”

“That must be it.” Chris looked away, thinking again how young Derek was and how naïve he could be sometimes.

“I didn’t want to hurt her. It never crossed my mind.” Derek assured him misinterpreting Chris’ reticence completely.

“You probably saved her life Derek.” Chris looked back at him. “Thank you. Though it is somewhat belated.”

It was Derek’s turn to avert his eyes.

“It was a selfish move. I didn’t want the hunters to come after me.”

“Tell me then,” Chris put down his beer bottle and turned his whole attention on Derek. “Would you have looked the other way if it was Lydia instead, who was a stranger to you then?”

“No.” Derek replied immediately.

“What if we never moved back? What if there was no threat to your life from us? What would you have done then? Would you still have let Scott maul somebody to death?”

“Never.” Derek said fiercely. Then he ducked his head, “that is not…it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Scott was hardly your responsibility Derek.”

“But this town is.” Derek finally blurted out. “This town is my responsibility and though my mom is not there anymore, I must protect it.”

“Oh then you would have just turned away and left if you came across some random werewolf attacking a girl in a dark alley in say…New York.”

Derek remained stubbornly silent.

Chris smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

“Let me know when the epiphany hits you. I need some prior warning for you are heavy.”

“Fuck you Argent.”

The tense moment had dissolved into mutual leg-pulling and easy banter after that.

He comes back to the present tense with a jolt as Scott is shaking him by the arm.

“You ok Chris?”

He realizes that everybody has stopped talking and is looking at him with concerned eyes, except for Derek.

“Yeah, so,” Stiles resumes where he has left off.

“First, there is another dark druid in town and second Derek has visited her bookstore and has got himself propositioned and third we are going to encourage Derek to take up on her offer so that we can spy on her?”

The incredulity in his tone belies his concern, which is pretty plain to Chris for he has similar reservation as Stiles.

“Dude, it is Derek’s idea in the first place.” Scott says apologetically.

“And since when do we trust his ideas? Derek’s ideas are terrible. I think we agreed never to trust his ideas after…”

“It got the kelpies killed.” Derek speaks up for the first time.

Chris shudders thinking back of that time. He is not fond of remembering a handful of times he has broken down crying. Actually it has been only two times – Victoria and Allison.

Now Derek.

“Yes and you _died_ in the process.” Stiles yells. “You actually fucking died and Kira had to use all her newfound kitsune mojo to bring you back and then she was in coma for a month.”

Derek winces visibly. “I never asked you guys to risk…”

“We will always risk our lives for you.” Stiles retorts. “Like you would do for us.”

The sheriff clears his throat.

“Perhaps we are getting off the topic here.”

“No, dad, the topic is Derek’s monumental stupidity. So we are still very much with the topic.”

“It is a good idea.” Derek says defensively.

“What if she sees through it right away?” Chris finally voices his concern and Derek’s eyes snap to him.

He looks away immediately.

“She won’t. Even though she can sense I am a werewolf I just went to the bookstore as a regular customer and it was she who approached me, not the other way round.”

“Of course she would if you waltz into her store with your…” Stiles waves a hand encompassing all of Derek, “…everything.”

Derek is wearing a beige, hand-knitted cardigan over a burgundy Henley.

He is looking downright edible.

 

_“This is wrong.” Chris mumbles even as his lips are moving across Derek’s cheekbones, ghosting kisses over them._

_“This shouldn’t…we need to stop.” He can hardly understand what he is saying for he is lost at the myriad sensations to have Derek Hale in his arms, like he has imagined so many times before._

_It is just a stupid infatuation. He knows it. He is not a teenager and he will lose this friendship which is holding him together nowadays if Derek ever gets a hint of it._

_That is what he tries to tell himself when he has found himself imagining how it will be like to hold Derek like he wants to hold him after sharing a manly hug when they beat Scott and Liam at beach volleyball the one time the pack took a vacation together._

_He has found himself staring at Derek, frolicking in the water with the younger members of the pack, in black swim shorts._

_He has been wondering all day where all these are coming from – this heavy knot at the base of his abdomen, the slight buzz under the skin, the mellow happiness he has been feeling each time his eyes met Derek’s and he has grinned back, a dazzling flash of dimples and uneven, white teeth._

_It is only when he has jerked himself off slowly in the luxurious bathroom of the beachside villa they rented (courtesy Derek) and Derek’s name falls from his lips as he has come in spurts leaning against the shower wall that he realizes how thoroughly fucked he is._

_It has been a battle of will to hide his evident attraction for the man because Derek to him equals a forbidden fruit. It has become even harder once he has realized it is not only physical attraction, but that his affection for Derek has crossed the friendly boundary a long time back._

“Well, I would love to hear your idea Stiles.” Derek crosses his arms belligerently.

“We can take a direct approach. Scott in his charming way can ask her what she has been doing in this town and just drop casual hints that she needs to be a good girl and behave or else.”

“And you are willing to risk Scott’s life?”

“We will all be right by his side. The entire pack and my dad and Parrish. Chris will be there too. And it will be in broad daylight in the middle of her bookstore. I think it is unlikely she will try anything.”

“We don’t even know how powerful she is.” Derek argues. “What if she casts some nasty spell? What would our strength and number mean? Absolutely nothing.”

“The same is true for you too dude. She can put you under a spell. You are going to be bumping uglies with her for God’s sake.”

Derek turns beet-red at that and though that is a highly distracting sight, something in Chris bristles at that.

“Nobody is having sex with anybody.” He speaks out firmly. “Remember last time when Jennifer tried to turn Derek into her bodyguard?”

“We are having coffee.” Derek grits out between clenched teeth.”And Stiles if you repeat that expression in my presence that will be the last thing you say, for a very very long time.”

“I agree with Derek wholeheartedly.” The sheriff looks at his son with a disgusted expression on his face. “Where the hell are you learning your English from?”

“It is a perfectly good expression.” Stiles argues. “And Derek, dude, don’t you know coffee is never coffee when the said coffee drinker is trying to get into your pants.”

Derek facepalms and the sheriff groans out loud.

“I am disowning him. I don’t even know him. What is a Stiles anyway.” The latter complains.

“Apparently a human who is unable to shut up even if his life depends on it.” Derek deadpans.

“Oh shut up you two. You love me exactly like I am.”

Derek’s eyes roll skyward, an expression Chris is familiar with and in Derekspeak it reads _God help me but I do_.

His lips quirk up involuntarily.

“So what happens to that coffee?” Malia asks cautiously. “I get it that it is a euphemism for –”

Kira who has been standing beside her, claps a hand over her mouth quickly and throws a nervous smile at Derek who is glowering at her.

“Malia, while I am glad that your vocabulary has improved enough to include four-syllable words…” the sheriff shakes his head resignedly.

“Umphnmmmmmmm…”

“Kira you better not take off your hand.” Derek warns.

“Absolutely, because what comes out of her mouth may scar me permanently and I don’t have supernatural healing.”

Malia rolls her eyes, but doesn’t try to say anything and Kira removes her hand cautiously.

“So,” Stiles swings his arms back and forth.

“I am going to have coffee with this mysterious dark druid in broad daylight in the coffee-shop just around the corner, and there is no danger other than the usual.” Derek speaks up before Stiles can go any further.

“And don’t even try to follow me into the shop.” Derek points at Scott and Stiles. Both boys get busy into looking innocent.

“We can be stealthy.” Liam suggests.

“You are the least stealthy bunch of supernatural creatures that ever walked the earth, especially with Stiles in tow.”

"Hey!" Stiles protests. 

Scott tries to look offended too, but then he just breaks into a goofy smile.

“Yeah we are a bit…”

“Boisterous. We are a boisterous bunch.” Stiles says. “See, I know good English too.”

 

_Now that all his fantasies, the ones he has been hiding away in the dark corners of his mind has tumbled out into the open, all he can think about is how wrong this feels. That he is completely unprepared for this and Derek deserves better than the dirty fantasies of an old man. The more time he has spent with Derek, the more he has got to know the bashful person with a magnificent heart, the more he gets convinced he has never met nor ever will meet anybody as genuinely good and self-sacrificing as Derek in his entire lifetime, the more he cringes away from what he feels for the man for how can it be adequate. It is not adequate and it is not enough._

_So he pulls away from him in spite of Derek’s broken protest. Shuts him up with a gentle kiss on the forehead and a hand clamped over his mouth._

_“I am sorry.” He says and his voice is also hoarse with unshed tears. “This has been a mistake. You are…I can’t… with you.”_

_Derek stares at him for a long time and nods once curtly. Only then Chris removes his hand from his mouth because he has been afraid what Derek has been saying would crumble his resolve which is not much strong to begin with._

_But he will do right by Derek, that he will not take advantage of his vulnerability._

_He will never be another Kate for Derek._

_It is awkward and silent after that._

“Just explain to me again how you know she is in fact a druid?” The sheriff asks.

“Hayden discovered it actually.” Scott says. “After Chris and Derek found out there was at least a witch or a druid who had been helping the wendigo family they put down two weeks back.”

Once Scott has got over being angry and upset over the incident and also with the fact that Derek hasn’t bothered to call the pack for help, he has agreed with Chris that there was no other means to stop them other than killing them. The wendigos are set in their ways and once they have got the taste of human flesh there is no way to wean them off it.

“The wendigos, all of them barring two had been hiding in plain sight from us because they had been masking their scent, their voice, their entire existence in fact from every supernatural being they encountered.”

“Why not all of them?”

“Probably because the masking worked both ways.” Derek answers the sheriff this time. “They are unable to pick up any scent either. So it makes sense that two of them were un-masked so that they could alert the pack when another supernatural being is around.”

“Clever.” The sheriff hums. “So how did Hayden found her out? The druid that has been helping them?”

“The bookstore has a children’s section.” Hayden takes upon the explanation. “The parent of one of the missing children is my sister’s best friend. She contacted her about her kid and I listened to that phone call. When my sister grilled her about her activities she mentioned the visit to the bookstore when she had been visiting her grandparents here in Beacon Hills.”

“Yeah, I remember Valerie asking me if we would put a lookout for a kid from the neighbouring town.”

“Has she…” Chris trails off.

“She is one of the survivors, thank God.” Hayden says. “In fact, no. I should thank you and Derek for it.”

“Don’t.” Chris offers her a smile. “It is our job to protect people.”

“Did you visit the bookshop too? How did you spot the druid?”

“I have a…family heirloom, a necklace.” Hayden’s hand clutches a pendant hanging from her neck. It doesn’t look anything extraordinary. “It changes colour when the wearer comes in contact with dark magic.”

“So it changed colour when you stepped into the shop?”

“No, not immediately.” She says. “But it did when I came in contact with the shop-owner. Her finger accidentally brushed over my skin when she handed me my purchase and I immediately felt my pendant getting warmer.”

“She didn’t see you, did she?” Liam asks anxiously.

“No,” Hayden directs a fond smile at his direction. “It was hidden under my shirt. I don’t wear it outside.”

“Its colour changed to a bright orange.” Stiles explains the rest. “Which as per Deaton is the colour of druid magic gone bad.”

 

_They rescue five children the youngest being barely three from the basement and Chris wants to raise the family of wendigos from dead to kill them again._

_Derek doesn't talk to him before they part ways after handing over the kids to deputy Parish. If Chris expects a phone call, or a text message with some random observation from Derek (as he is wont to do) in the following days, he is quietly disappointed. Only now he notices how much they do call or text each other. It has never been anything special. Just the day before the wendigo incident they texted back and forth about merits and demerits of decaf. Now there is only radio silence from the other end. Chris' calls go to voicemail and he doesn't bother leaving a message. He sends text messages instead and gets no reply. It takes another few days to sink in Derek is really not talking to him and in fact avoiding him. Chris takes this petulance in his stride, for this again is a painful reminder of Derek's youth._

_He is sure Derek will get over it. He has to for Chris needs them to go back being friends again. Otherwise it will be really difficult to hold on to his sanity._

“So it comes down to coffee.” The sheriff says.

“It is serendipitous.” Derek explains. “I really visited the new bookshop just to check it out.”

“Until the evil shop-owner started checking _you_ out.”

“Stiles.” Derek warns.

“Just stating the fact here.” Stiles raises his hands in air in surrender.

“This is the tenth time I am repeating it that Rowina only invited me for a cup of coffee and I accepted because…well because I had no reason not to.”

Derek is not looking at him but he can feel the accusation in his voice nonetheless. Jealousy curls in Chris’ stomach.

“Oh so it is Rowina now.” He mutters under the breath.

“Yes Chris.” Derek re-directs his glare to him, damn werewolf hearing. “It is Rowina. Who is a lovely lady and shares my taste in books. She is a fan of Nat King Cole like me and we bonded over the Italian recipe book I purchased.”

“And who seems to already have you under a spell.”

“I am not…God, it is just a date.”

“Oh so you get it that it is a date.” Chris says scathingly.

_What the hell does he think he is doing?_  


“What is that to you?”

“Let me see if I can explain it to you. But wait, Stiles has already done it, in vivid details.”

“Look,” Derek’s voice has taken a dangerous note, “all I knew was that a woman who was nice and friendly, flirted with me and I flirted back. I didn’t know I needed your permission for that.”

The sheriff clears his throat.

“Guys maybe we should…”

“I think I am done here.” Derek suddenly spins on his heels and picks up his leather jacket which has been draped over the backrest of a chair.

“Derek stop.” Chris lets a bit of authoritativeness seep into his voice.

Derek freezes near the doorway. His lips are pressed into a grim line.

The rest of the pack shifts on their feet uneasily.

“I think John is right.” Scott is suddenly on his feet. “We already have a plan in place and we will be nearby if Derek needs us.”

“But Scott…” Stiles whines.

“I think Derek has proved more than once he can handle himself at the face of impossible odds.” Scott reminds his friend gently. “We need to trust him if he says he can handle one druid. Ok?”

Chris doesn’t feel surprised any more when Scott talks about his unshakable faith on Derek. Long gone are the days of his hostility towards the born wolf. Scott loves Derek back just as much as Derek sees him as his kid brother and _his_ to protect. Derek doles out affection quite freely these days and it is not rare to see him surprising a younger pack member with a one-arm hug or a ruffling of hair or a kiss to the forehead or baking a mouthwatering cake for their birthdays which is wolfed up by the pack within seconds (Stiles once compared their whole bunch including himself to the piranhas).

Everybody barring Derek files out, talking among themselves in low voices.

The sheriff pauses before Chris.

“Fix this.” He mouths, pointing a finger to where Derek is standing with a set jaw, still looking resolutely away from him.

“I will try.” Chris mouths back.

“Good for otherwise I won’t hesitate using the very painful-looking bullets you supplied me on your good self.” The sheriff smiles at him and it is not a kind smile. “I like you Chris but you don’t mess with any of my kids.”

Chris nods. John and Melissa have pretty much adopted Derek after he returned like a prodigal son and swooped in to save the day when Scott had called him. He has no doubts Melissa too will have his balls if Derek is hurt and he is the cause.

The sheriff pats Derek on the back on his way out with the wolf kind of hunching on himself, refusing to meet his eyes.

Chris waits until he is sure all the wolves and foxes and coyotes are out of hearing range.

Then he walks up to Derek, slowly, because he is not sure how much his proximity will be welcomed.

“Derek, I hope you haven’t agreed to this because you are angry at me.” Chris starts gently. “Because I think you are smarter than that.”

Derek looks up this time and his eyes are blazing in anger.

“No, Chris.” He spits. “She just surprised me, is all. That somebody, another human being can still look at me and not see the damaged ruins of a person. That somebody can actually want to be with me. It just caught me off-guard and I said yes. Because sue me but I want that. I want somebody to want me. Even if it is a lie. Even if she doesn’t know my true nature. That she can…”

Derek stops to take a deep breath and bites his lower lip. Then he looks away, frowning.

“It is just a make-belief for two seconds. It won’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things, but I figured I would like to live in this bubble, if only to experience what it would be like.”

“What would what be like?” Chris takes an involuntary step towards Derek.

The expression on Derek’s face is breaking his heart. Because he has dropped his cold mask the moment the pack has stepped away.

Derek meets his eyes again.

“What it would be like to be loved back.”

“She doesn’t.” Chris says fiercely, deliberately misunderstanding Derek.

“What if she does?” Derek wonders and there is a new gleam in his eyes. “I mean I am the one protesting the loudest that it is just coffee, but her heart stuttered when she looked at me and I know it is not only lust. She genuinely liked me, evil druid or no.”

“You cannot do it Derek.” Chris takes another step that brings him into Derek’s personal space. He is immediately soaking up the warmth Derek’s body exudes and something in him relaxes, is put to rest. The memory of the last ten restless nights fraught alternately with sleeplessness and nightmares disappear like smoke.

Derek is here within a touchable distance and everything is right with Chris’ world. He can rest easy, can breathe easy, can remember all the good things, the feel of Allison’s hair on his lips as he kissed her goodnight, the sound of her laughter, sharp like sunlight, the cadence of her voice – remembers how she lives in the shared memories and in her motto that he lives by.

Derek is here and he feels he can take on the world, can fight back to back and hold back an entire army.

Derek is here, talking to him, after ten days and he can stop going out of his mind.

But Derek is looking like at him like a wounded animal.

“Why not?” He asks.

“Because you won’t love her.” Chris’ voice is hoarse. He clears his throat.

“Why is that?”

“She is a dark druid.”

“So?” Derek raises one eyebrow. “All of us have killed at one point or the other by now. Even Scott.”

“It is not the same.”

“People can change.”

“Oh don’t be naïve.” Chris shoves Derek in the chest. “Here we are holding pack meeting about how to spy on her and you are suddenly talking about her feelings for you? Do you think she wants you? Are you really that stupid?”

Derek is looking at him like he is seeing him for the first time and not in a good way.

“So you think I am so unworthy that nobody can possibly want me.”

“No, Derek , that is not…”

Derek laughs, jagged and bitter and Chris clamps his mouth shut.

“Of course you do. You pretty much said it to my face.”

“No, Derek.” Chris is shaking his head in denial. When has he indicated Derek is unworthy? If anything it is the exact opposite.

“I know I am damaged and broken and I have taken innocent lives and I am basically a…” Derek takes a sharp breath. “I forget sometimes.”

Chris looks up at Derek in alarm at his tone.

“I forget I am not to have anything good and keep it for me. I forget that is not how it works. For me.”

Derek seems to be looking right through Chris.

“Derek?” Chris says with his heart in his mouth.

“I forget and I am sorry for that.” Derek doesn’t even seem to be aware that he is at all saying it out loud. He seems to be lost in some fucking nightmare in his head.

Chris breaches the distance between them and grabs his arms.

“Derek, look at me.”  


“Do you know Braeden was my first as far as mutual consent goes?”

Chris’ fingers tightened on Derek’s arms, enough to leave bruises if Derek were human. But Derek hardly ever notices it. He knows about Derek and Braeden. Derek once mentioned it casually when Chris had asked him about her that there was no romantic feeling on either side. They liked and respected each other and that she was more of a friend with benefits, with emphasis on _friend_. Should it be ironical that Derek’s first non-romantic relationship was the one where he got to give a clear consent?

“Kate was my first and I let her…”

Chris has always guessed at it, but then having it confirmed doesn’t do any good.

“I wanted to impress her so bad. I kept quiet throughout. She convinced me I needed it.”

Chris now wants to resurrect his own sister and kill her again like the wendigos, and this time slowly.

He is scared to ask what exactly she made Derek believe he _needed_. He was scared that Derek would tell him and he wouldn’t be able to take it without going insane. He was scared that Derek would never tell him and he would go insane anyway imaging the worst possible things.

“Then at New York I let people take me home and I…I let them…use me as they…”

Derek has started shaking.

Chris’ worst fear has been confirmed. That Derek has suffered much more than meets the eyes and that he has never learnt the meaning of consent.

“Laura yelled at me and even tried to beat some sense into me once and she was crying the entire time and then she hugged me and leeched away my pain. We just held onto each other that night crying our eyes out, but it didn’t lessen it a single bit.”

“What didn’t Derek?” Chris whispers.

He wants his Derek back. Strong, stoic and brave. And he realizes this is also his Derek. That Derek is also this. That the same courage that opens his heart makes him vulnerable. He realizes Derek’s courage cannot defend him from this.

“The pain. It won’t go away. No matter what I do. And then Laura…”

Derek sways where he stands. Chris puts his arms around him and hugs him tight. He wishes he can leech his pain away like Laura did so many years ago.

Derek is not hugging him back, but Chris does not relent. He needs the physical proof that Derek is here, at least his body is, no matter where his mind has wandered off, and he will bring him back and will make it ok.

“I thought Jennifer was it. She looked at me like I was precious. She touched me like I was breakable, like she could see all the chinks in my armour and she wanted me still. That I would have somebody too. Somebody to die for, somebody to love, somebody to come home to.”

“I am sorry Derek…I am so sorry.” Chris is rubbing Derek’s back soothingly. He doesn’t know what he is apologizing for.

For bullying a desperate and helpless kid who had lost everything, for not being kinder later when they turned reluctant allies, for not seeing through the gruff exterior, the false bravado and see the lonely and scared boy lurking beneath. For not being able to be what Derek needs him to be, even now.

Or maybe for all of these.

“It was all a lie.”

Derek’s voice finally breaks. Chris cradles Derek’s head with one hand and presses his cheek against his, breathing the soft-sweet scent of his raven hair, but Derek is still standing too rigidly.

“And then you happened.”

Chris stops breathing altogether.

“I had a hard time figuring out what it was I felt...I feel, for you, until that day.”

No, no, no – it shouldn’t happen like this. Derek is not supposed to feel for him the way he feels for Derek.

“But you don’t want me. Why would you?”

“No, Derek…” Chris rears back and grabs Derek’s face with both hands roughly. “That is a completely wrong line of thinking.”

Derek glares at him even though his eyes are damp.

“Don’t patronize me Argent.”

“I am not.” Chris has a hard time not to caress Derek’s face with his thumb. “Trust me I am not. But you need to understand when I said it is a mistake I didn’t mean you.”

“Oh so it is the old _it is not you, it is me_ argument?”

“It is not that either.”

“So what?” Derek raises his chin. “What are you holding back for? I know you want me physically. So what is your problem if you don’t think there is something else wrong with me.”

“Because I want you Derek wanting you has never been a problem.” Chris pretty much shouts in his face.

Derek’s eyes widen and there is the ghost of a smile in his lips and God give him strength but Chris has a feeling he is about to kill that smile even before it even appears.

“But I am not good for you.” Chris says forcefully. “Look at you and look at me.”

“I am looking.” Derek yells back. “And all I see is a friend. Somebody who will throw himself into danger heedlessly for me. Somebody who gets my jokes and finishes my sentence. Somebody who teaches me to be a better man, everyday. Somebody I would…” he pauses, “somebody I can easily imagine spending the rest of my life with.”

Chris doesn’t know what his face is doing, but Derek’s belligerent expression softens and he places the palm of his hand against Chris’ cheek. The gesture is so gentle and so intimate that it makes Chris’ breath hitch in his throat.

“Please,” Derek is begging in a small voice and his eyes are pleading with him, his entire being is pleading with him, but his body is hunched down. Like he is expecting a blow.

Something breaks free inside Chris, something that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

God, how pathetic he is and how Gerard and Kate are laughing at him in their graves.

He, a hardened hunter from the house of Argent, becoming a putty by a pair of eyes that belong to a certified born werewolf, creatures he has been trained to kill all his life.

Derek is ruining him, destroying all his defenses, all filmsy excuses by just being there – warm, alive and beautiful, so fucking beautiful.

The pain in his eyes is killing Chris where he stands. He wants to reach out. Or want is actually a mild word compared to what he is feeling right now. He is completely helpless against this pull.

Then Derek lowers his eyes, lashes fanning over the cheekbones, and he is taking a small step back, dislodging Chris’ hands gripping his face.

He looks…devastated.

He takes another wobbly step back. Chris has never seen Derek wobble except for when he is seriously injured, but Derek doesn’t even seem to be aware of what he is doing. It seems he has given up the control he normally exercises over his body and over his mind.

And it dawns upon Chris that it is because he sees rejection again in Chris’ inaction.

To prove his suspicion Derek turns his back on him, broad shoulders drooped down like they are weighed down by an impossible burden and Chris is adding an extra amount of weight to it.

He moves without thinking and places a hand on Derek’s shoulder.

“Derek.”

“No.” Derek doesn’t turn back, but goes completely stiff under him. His voice is low and though as wrecked as before, it is still firm.

“I don’t need your pity. I don’t need to know why.”

“I hardly pity you Derek.”

_God, you are so young and beautiful and you are going to be whole again one day and find somebody who deserves you. Not me. Never me._

And immediately a white hot rage sears through his heart to think somebody else touching Derek, kissing him breathless, make him moan their names in that lovely cadence of his voice.

“I am sorry.” Derek says in the same defeated tone. “Sorry to make this awkward. You can let me go now.”

“No.”

The proprietary tone makes both of them start.

Derek is still standing woodenly with his back to him.

“You don’t want me Chris. Not really. It was...I don't know what it was, but I understand. It was a mistake.” Derek’s voice is breaking again on the word mistake. “Just let me go.”

“Never.”

Chris spins Derek around and wraps one hand around his neck to bring him closer until they are standing almost chest to chest again.

“It was not a mistake.”

“Don’t you dare go hot and cold on me Argent.” Derek hisses. “You either want me. Want this. Or you don’t. And you have made it clear that I –”

It is his turn to shut Derek up with his mouth. Derek moans as he bites Derek’s lower lip viciously enough to draw blood and then he is laving it with broad strokes, chin to lips, and then pressing kisses at the corner of the mouth. Derek’s arms are bunching his t-shirt on his sides, blunt human fingers digging into his skin through the shirt and Derek is, he is just….stuff dreams are made of. He is warm and so full of life, so full of light and possibilities and so strong, always so very strong while he has been a coward, always looking the other way – when Kate went off the rail, when Gerard happened, and his family resorted to torturing and  murdering innocent people in the name of hunting – he had looked the other way until his own daughter was turning into one of them. Only that gave him a pause and only then he mustered the courage to stand up to them.

But Derek is a different matter altogether. He is so brave in the face of the impossible grief and the mind-numbing guilt which has been much greater than a mere survivor’s guilt. And then he comes back not to avenge his family, but to carry on his family’s legacy that is to protect Beacon Hills, to protect its people, the very people who hardly ever spared him any kindness.

Packless, sisterless, friendless, radarless – driven by sheer courage and grit only he had gone on trying to form and foster bonds in his own awkward way with good people, trying to save them from getting killed, trying to re-create a family from ragtag teenagers like collecting broken toys rather than the shiny new ones, Derek has always been his own rock, though he hardly realizes it.

And him?

Old and broken and bitter. Towards the end of his time to walk upon this earth.

How can he even begin to conceive he can have somebody like Derek only for him? How can he even accept such a gift?

And he pours his incredulity in every kiss, every touch, every tug of hair that elicits beautiful sounds from Derek, every breath…

Until Derek pulls away and is between one moment and the next, he is standing a couple of feet away from him, looking at him with a broken expression.

“You need to make up your mind Chris.” He says calmly, though there is a storm raging behind his sea-foam irises.

“You cannot keep doing this.” He goes on. “Remember I don’t do anything halfway and so,” he looks away, “I would rather not if you don’t feel the same for me.”

“Derek, you don’t understand….”

“I understand just fine Chris.”

Then Derek smiles. It is self-deprecating and so full of sadness that Chris’ heart clenches. It is physically painful to look at the beautiful boy, in his clear, honest, stormy eyes.

“I am not that stupid that I don’t understand rejection.”

Then he is backing away in earnest.

“Don’t go.” The plea falls from his lips before he can stop it, but Derek doesn’t stop, only shakes his head ruefully.

Then just before he has backed out of the room and closes the door behind him he just pins Chris with one look and it holds everything – a plea, a promise and a declaration.

Chris doesn’t move from his place as Derek’s car drives away from his home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read my original fantasy novel on my website [here](https://www.theauthorkamalika.org/).


	3. Chapter 3

They are running through the preserve at a breakneck speed.

They always end up running through the preserve, even though it does little good. It is a miracle that they are still alive and accounted for (save a handful, his mind screams, and he shushes it in time because  there is no need for a nervous breakdown in the thick of a fight and flight).

Chris leaps over a fallen log, almost spraining his ankle.

His reflexes are not that good any more. His age is catching up with him.

On his immediate left Derek is slowing down, though he is not exactly looking at his direction. Chris knows he is slowing down on his account and that simply won’t do.

And it has got nothing to do with the barely conscious girl in his arms.

 

_It all comes to this._

_He has always known this and God knows why he expected otherwise._

_Derek is looking warm and bright in a powder-blue sweater. His eyes reflecting back the blue and taking on the hue, making it lighter._

_Derek is actually grinning. There are teeth involved. Uneven and white. There are dimples on both his cheeks, pronounced because he has shaved, probably this morning. His cheeks are of a vaguely bluish tint, until he is blushing pink. Like he is doing right now._

_Jesus Christ, he needs a drink!_

_“Stay.” Lydia’s fingers are suddenly wrapped around his arm. “I don’t trust her.”_

_Chris grits his teeth and stays put._

_“I don’t trust myself to be a good judge of character right now.” He grinds out, eyeing Derek’s arm distastefully._

_The arm that is at present wrapped around the tiny waist of the stunning blonde who has plastered herself to his side for the good part of the last hour._

_She is young and beautiful, just like Derek and together they look like the happily-ever-after of a fairy tale._

_So young._

_Why do they come so young?_

_Derek turns to throw him a look._

_Chris rolls his eyes, unbothered._

_Derek stares a bit longer, face cold and stern and then returns his attention to sheriff Stilinski again._

_“Ok, so...she has no part in the killing?” He is asking._

_Chris scowls. It is completely pointless. Everybody has taken to her. The entire pack. Except for Lydia and him._

_“Not directly, no.” She is saying in a low, musical voice, directing a shy smile up at Derek who nods down to her encouragingly.”But I would be lying if I say I didn’t know about it. But I swear to God I didn’t know they had been taking the children. When Derek told me, I didn’t know what to do. If I could at all live with the knowledge of what my brother and his family did and that I enabled them.”_

_“It is easy to blame yourself.” Derek murmurs._

_Ok, so now what is this? People with insurmountable amount of suppressed guilt bonding time? What the hell is wrong with everybody?_

_“Usually there is some to place to begin with.” Lydia pipes up and now everybody is giving her the look, pointedly not glancing towards  Derek. “No offence Derek. I did say usually, didn’t I?”_

_Derek seems to be the only person not bothered by the statement._

_“None taken.” He says genially. “But sometimes your hands are tied. Like in this case her brother was a wendigo and...she did what she could to protect him.”_

_“Protect a monster you mean.” Lydia spits._

_The girl, Rowina, doesn’t flinch. She lifts her chin and meets Lydia's eyes head on._

_“Like Peter?” Derek answers for her. “Whom I couldn’t bring myself to kill when I had the chance?”_

_“Derek,” Lydia’s eyes soften._

_“No, Lydia.” Derek shakes his head, taking a step away from Rowina (thank God) and towards her. “You cannot have a double standard. You cannot say you understand why I let Peter live but not why she wanted her brother’s family magically shielded.”_

_“Ok,” Lydia concedes. Of course she does for she is a hopeless pushover as far as Derek is concerned. Despite the six years age gap it is she who treats him like her younger sibling rather than the other way round. And Derek, surprisingly lets her fuss over him. Sometimes he watches her rambling about fashion and boys in one breath and the latest advancement in stem cells researches the next with a fond look on his face. Chris is not sure if Derek even realises when he has it._

_“So you are not going to go crazy ass darach on us and start ritually sacrificing humans for power?” Stiles asks._

_“I am not a darach.” She protests. “My magic is dark but I don’t use my power for evil.”_

_“Doesn’t that make you dangerous?” Kira asks slowly._

_“It kinda does.”_

 

She is bleeding. Chris can see it even in the slanting moonlight seeping though the overhead foliage. Probably to death. If she doesn’t see a hospital soon, she is going to die. Derek probably realises that too, for he has heard Derek whispering to her, now and then, even in between the fight and the resultant flight, small words of encouragement like ‘hang on’ or ‘please don’t die’ or maybe something more, something even more intimate that Chris has no business to hear.

And now Derek is slowing down because of Chris. Because Chris has been distracted all evening with his eyes glued to how Derek is always keeping the druid behind him, keeping a firm hand around her wrist most of the time, and she on her part has pretty much glued herself to his back, until one of the were-jaguars has launched herself at Derek, massive claws aiming for the throat as Derek is busy taking out their alpha. There is suddenly a small body between the two and the were-jaguar is thrown into the air like a ragdoll. Electricity crackles in air along with a sinister-tasting wind. Rowina stands stock still as the air whips up her hair and swirls her blond locks around her face.

She raises her palm and the were-jaguar whimpers and crumples to the ground.

Rowina closes her hand into a tight little fist, looking distant and dangerous and the were-jaguar starts bleeding – from the mouth and nose and ears and from the eyes and finally she is still.

When the bullet hits her, Rowina looks as shocked as Derek, Scott, the entire pack or even Chris. You wouldn’t normally think a pack of shape-shifters carrying firearms with them, but apparently they do.

Derek catches her before she falls, clapping a hand over the bullet hole in her stomach.

“No.” Derek says and he is looking horrified.

 

_“Someone is in love.” Stiles singsongs after Rowina takes her leave._

_“What?” Derek quirks an eyebrow at Stiles, like he is daring him to say another word._

_Well, too bad for him that Stiles has stopped being intimidated by Derek a long time back. It has taken a while for Derek is one for putting up a front. But Stiles is intelligent and after he realises Derek will never raise a finger to hurt him, quite the contrary in fact, there is no stopping him being the most obnoxiously annoying little pest that ever existed to pester Derek._

_“You.” Stiles accuses with a finger jabbing on Derek’s chest. “Are in love.”_

_“Don’t be an idiot.”_

_“Your face is an idiot.”_

_“That is not...an actual expression.”_

_“Don’t dare to change the subject.” Stiles smirks. “You are actually cheerful this morning and sometimes you smile like this, secretly when no one is looking. Without any reason!”_

_Derek is trying to stare Stiles into submission to absolutely no avail._

_“Is it true?” Lydia asks.. “You haven’t even started officially dating her yet.”_

_“Fake dating to real love.” Kira sighs. “How very Hollywood!”_

_“Will you guys please stop?” Derek growls in frustration. “I am not dating her and I am not in love.”_

_Scott tilts his head._

_“Interesting.” He hums. “The first part of the statement seems true and the second part is false.”_

_Even if Scott has just been messing with him, it is the tell-tale blush that tinges his ears pink again that is saying everything needs to be said on the subject._

_Chris’ heart sinks. He can still remember the aftermath of the little coffee date (which Derek vehemently refuses to call a date). He feels downright nostalgic for the time the entire pack believed Rowina to put a love spell of some sort on Derek._

_Because Derek doesn’t trust people easily, except for when they are exactly wrong for him._

_Derek starts to hang around in the book shop and ends up joining the book club that Rowina organises once a week._

_If that is a miracle, it is nothing compared to the shock he receives when he visits the mysterious book shop and to his annoyance finds it quaint and charming (it is beautifully decorated with rustic furniture and tribal arts and has a corner with a large shelf of second-hand books where people can read a book free if cost for hours with a cup of coffee without being disturbed.)_

_And then there is Derek, sitting cross-legged on the floor, clutching a highlighter between his teeth and wearing a small frown between his eyebrows as he is browsing through what looks like a catalogue from a distance. He is surrounded by kids. Regulars, Rowina calls them, crawling all over him, apparently pointing out stuff from the catalogue and Derek is dutifully hightlighting them, speaking softly with them the entire time._

_He is not quite smiling, but it is a near thing._

_Apparently Rowina has roped in his help to re-decorate the children’s section with a corner turned into a magic cave._

_Derek always aspired to be an architect. Like his father. Chris knew because Derek had spilled it over beer. Like they had been spilling stuff to each other with perfect nonchalance, like each information is not carefully stored in the memory of the other – like it doesn’t matter that the hunter and the werewolf were just in the habit of confessing personal details to each other like old friends._

_“You still can. You know.” Chris had remarked. “Go to college. Get a degree. (Get a girlfriend and settle down – he didn’t add).”_

_“Nah.” Derek had shaken his head. “I don’t think I can go back to school and pretend to be...normal, like the fire and Laura and Peter and all the other things never happened.”_

_“Don’t pretend then.” Chris had said, playing the devil’s advocate. For even then he knew he would not survive Derek going off to college. Back at the time when there used to be no buzz under his skin when Derek looked down and blushed. His eyes didn’t linger on Derek’s shapely hands, more often than politeness permitted. Still he knew at the core of his being that this former enemy was the thread with which he hangs in balance – over this great chasm that he calls his life._

_“Seriously Der,” he had said, taking the pet-name the pack had picked for Derek for the first time and smirking when Derek had shaken his head at him in betrayal (you too???). “You should consider it. I heard emo is a fashionable look on college campus.”_

_“You are hanging around with Stiles too much.” Derek had grumbled and they had let the subject slide._

_Chris almost forgot about it until now._

 

Three down, five to go.

That is the status when Scott’s phone rings.

“Deaton?”

“Scott...now!”

Derek doesn’t spare Chris a single glance, but just scoops the bleeding druid in his arms and makes a beeline for the gaping hole on the wall of the old Hale house (where else would a pack of were-jaguar from Europe choose for a showdown with the local pack?). He shoulders past a jaguar who still has his gun aimed at his heart, but Derek is faster and is on him in a lightening, and the were, while concentrating on shooting, has momentarily forgotten to guard his torso, and ends up with broken ribs as Derek slams past him. Chris who is following close at his heels wastes no time to plunge his knife into his forehead, right between the eyes while he is still a bit dazed by the impact. A blow no were has any hope against.

Scott and Kira take another direction and Liam and Malia a different one.

It has all been discussed ad nauseum.

Stiles is with Deaton, setting up the magic circle that will trap the were-jaguars inside the preserve.

Chris has been paired up with Derek (of course he is).

The girl bleeding out to death in Derek’s arm is supposed to stay back to help Stiles and Deaton. It has taken two months and an attack of a horde of omegas which Derek has repelled off single-handedly with the help of Rowina (they had no time to wait for the weekend for the entire pack to get home from college). Chris has finally come round to grudgingly accept that Rowina is not the evil incarnate even though her magic is dark at heart.

The day he sees Rowina painting Lydia’s toenails while she lies in the couch with her head resting against the arm-rest that he knows he has lost his last ally.

He didn’t know it was a battle.

If it was, he is already on the losing side and he never chose this. The paleness of Derek’s face, the tightness in his shoulders like he knows. He is going to lose another one of them.

No.

He knows there is no use arguing. Derek will not leave him behind or speed up and disappear beyond the magic line beyond which safety lies, even to save the life of the girl in his arms.

So he just makes himself run, ignoring the burn in his old bones, and the near-unbearable pain where a shape-shifter caught him earlier on the hip. He makes his unwilling body obey in the last burst of defiance for Derek doesn’t deserve this. Again.

He probably could have, following the path Derek is carving for him, wordlessly telling him to run fast and keep up even without glancing at his direction. But he is old and weary. And he is bone-tired. And he simply doesn’t have the motivation as Derek.

When the jaguar is on them, Derek is nearing the magic line, with Stiles gnawing his nails on the opposite side, looking ready to jump in and grab him and drag him to safety. His brown eyes widen as he takes in Rowina hanging limply from Derek’s arms.

Chris doesn’t wait to see whom the jaguar chooses to attack first. He dives in, drawing his Chinese daggers from the waistband, hooking his fingers through the loops on their hilts.

Parry...jab...swing...parry...swing...duck...

With the corner of his eyes he sees Derek crossing the line and the wards flaring up blue as he passes through.

Derek is safe.

The warm satisfaction curls in his stomach even as he slashes at the femoral artery of the jaguar. A vicious snarl from a different direction is his only warning before another one leaps on him.

Then another one.

He chuckles. They must have realised finally it is a trap – a wide one, sprawling over the entire Hale territory, with Derek’s blood bolstering the magic wards put up by Deaton and Rowina, a white and a dark druid working together.

Chris’ contacts in Europe have finally paid off as a group specialised in were-jaguars are already on their way. When confronted by Scott on a previously settled upon mutual ground, the jaguars have simply stated they are here to take over Beacon Hills. The weather suits them. And have nonchalantly mentioned they would try to make their death painless.

They meant the Beacon Hills pack.

This particular group has left a trail of massacre behind them, in Europe and elsewhere.

Now the jaguars are going to be slaughtered where they stand. A pity he won’t be there to see it.

“CHRIS!”

Nonononononono....

Chris knows that voice only too well! Derek is supposed to get home safe. Derek is supposed to live on. Derek is supposed to fall in love eventually and marry and have a house with a white picket fence and read to children in a quiet corner in an odd little bookshop in a quiet little town.

Instead he is here, slotting his back against Chris’, as three jaguars circle them.

Stupid, stubborn wolf!

When they charge Chris snarls at the enemy and makes every swing count for there is his friend, having his back and he knows Derek will die before letting anybody get through him.

So would he.

...

“You don’t really deserve him you know?”

Chris opens his door to the accusing stare of Rowina, the dark druid.

She is looking anything but a druid now, wearing a pink Garfield sweatshirt and hair tied up in a messy bun. She is looking like a normal girl, the same age as Derek’s. She looks tired and brittle. Like she hasn’t slept for a long time. Still there is a fire behind her wide, baby blue eyes.

Chris hates it that he cannot hate her.

He lets her in and offers her coffee. She cocks her hip against the kitchen island and glares at him.

Chris tries to remember why everything hurts.

Oh right! Almost dying at the hands of three jaguars. Good to remember. Always such fun!

“You are old and your thoughts are twisted. You know you are broken and you won’t ever mend. You know you need him to stay alive, like he is your drug. You know he is good and pure and you are anything but.”

“Stiles said you healed all of my wounds after you healed yourself. I was wondering why would you do that?” Chris asks in lieu of answering.

“Not important.” She waves a hand. “ _This_ is important.”

“ _This_ is not your business.” Chris sips his coffee and makes a face. There is too much sugar.

“I have not finished. Yet.” She snaps.

“I think we are quite finished here.”

“No. You don’t get it.” She tips her head to the ceiling as if calling for strength from above. “Even then you are _it_ for him. For whatever reason. I don’t see it, really. But what do I know?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You are not going to lie to Derek. Not anymore.” She raises a finger. “Don’t even dare to pretend you have no idea what I am talking about. He has died a thousand deaths over you in the last seven days when you were on the hospital bed. He deserves the truth.”

“Again, not your business.”

She pushes off the counter abruptly and advances on him.

The look in her face is enough to send a shiver down his spine.

“I care for him. That makes it my business. I have nobody else left to care for. That makes me dangerous.”

She puts down the cup in the sink and brushes past him.

“I have told him to man up and talk to you.” She says. “If he does, do yourself a kindness and listen him out. This may be your last chance.”

“Or what? You will swoop in and whisk his heart away.”

Rowina turns towards him and gives him a small, tired smile. Still it lights up her entire face.

“What heart?” She asks cryptically and leaves.

When he returns to his kitchen to make another cup, Derek is already standing there. In the same place Rowina has been, unconsciously mirroring her pose.

Chris almost laughs, but stops at the look on Derek’s face. He must have listened to the entire conversation.

“I have never dated Rowina.” He starts and he looks grim, determined.

“I haven’t asked.”

“I have come to care for her deeply. As a friend. I feel a kinship with her because she has been used by someone she loved.”

“I don’t...”

“I kept on repeating it but you never believed me. Did you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Silence.

“Why?” Derek finally grits out.

How do you answer a question like that? It is not a question you ask in polite society.

Why don’t you love me? Why are you pushing me away so?

People just don’t ask this out loud.

“You turn green every time I smile at Rowina. You risk your life for me. Again and again. You kiss me like...like I am this precious thing and you are awed by me.” Derek shakes his head in disbelief. “And you get this look in your eyes sometimes that you cannot look away from me. And then you push me away from you.”

Derek’s eyes have gone soft and pleading.

“Why Chris?”

Chris doesn’t answer for he is running out of excuses.

Finally Derek breaks the eye contact and looks away.

“I see.” Derek’s lower lip trembles briefly and his eyes are cast down.

“I see.” He repeats.

No, you stupid wolf. You really, really don’t.

“Derek...”

“Just give me a couple of days. I will be fine.”

Sure, like he was fine after the bomb went off at the police station or the berserks plunged their knives into him.

Derek looks up and tries to smile. He fails spectacularly.

...

“No offence Chris, you are kind of a dick.” Scott says.

“He is a gigantic dick.” Stiles agrees.

Rowina just plain glowers, not even trying to hide her distaste for him.

Derek has been conspicuous by his absence from the pack meeting second time in a row.

...

Chris loses the threads.

What is he? What has he been doing? Why is Allison’s room empty? Where is anything of everything...except for the bottle of Jack Daniels...which is always there, on the coffee table...an old friend that never lets down.

“You are killing him.” Lydia tsks. “And you are killing yourself.”

Chris is half sure he is only hallucinating the redhead and so he doesn’t bother with a reply.

“You are _such_ a coward. Derek deserves so much better.”

“Tell that to Derek.” Chris yells at her. “Make him see. Make him see that I am a wreck. That he should be loved by somebody young and wholesome. That I am a senile old man and that he is...”

Then Chris sobs into his hands.

What is Derek? How can he even begin to describe?

How can be begin to describe the magnificent creature who defeated all the darkness that surrounded him, the one with all heart and no sense of self-preservation, the one who used to want to be an architect and lived in the burnt ruins of his family’s home, the one who takes every nightmare in his stride and still fights on.

Still has it in his heart to care.

How can he tell her all these. It is Derek. It is just...Derek.

Lydia pries his hands away from his face and wipes his cheeks gently and pours his drinks into the sink and draws a bath for him. She hands him a fresh shirt and a pair of jeans. She makes him strong coffee and waits until he is sober.

“Did I tell you the part that you are killing him?” She crosses her arms and repeats.

Chris feels the sting of tears behind his eyes again.

“He is on your roof. Everyday. Keeping vigil. He doesn’t eat unless you eat. He doesn’t sleep even when you sleep for he is afraid you will wake up without him noticing and will do something stupid.” She pauses. “Well something even more stupid.”

She looks at him with kind eyes.

“Can you live with yourself if you lose him?”

“No, God...no.”

Lydia purses her lips and nods.

“Then you know what needs to be done.”

She leaves.

Chris goes to his bedroom and sits on the edge of his bed. The window is half open and he knows it has been Derek, checking up on him when he has been half conscious, drunk, near-delirious.

_Did I tell you the part that you are killing him?_

He needed to hear it. Chris is grateful to Lydia for not mincing her words.

For the first time in days he is absolutely sure what’s needed to be done.

“Derek.” He calls out because he knows Derek can hear him. “Derek, we need to talk.”

No answer.

“I am sorry. For everything.” Chris starts haltingly. “I really am, but you see, how can I know? I have lived my life and have made peace with my ending days. I was never prepared for you and God you hit me like a meteor.”

Chris laughs and it sounds strange in his own ears.

“You just blazed through all my defences without me noticing. I was so scared when I found how much I am gone on you.” He whispers.

It seems silly to say all these to an empty bedroom, but it is also easier this way.

He really is a coward.

“It shouldn’t have happened and that is what I keep on telling me the entire time.”

Derek is standing in front of him.

He is wearing the maroon sweater he wore the day he tried to burn Chris alive. Chris loves this colour on Derek. He remembers that day when Derek has been bent on murdering him and he has looked into Derek’s unseeing green eyes while he played with the lighter, he had wondered briefly _fuck me but he is gorgeous_.

He is not wearing any shoes, pink toes curling on the hardwood as Derek is hunched on himself. Chin pressed to the chest, dark locks falling over the forehead, hiding his eyes. Hands shoved deep into the pocket.

He is noticeably thinner.

“It was so unexpected. I was not looking for it. I didn’t want it.”

Derek hunches down some more and Chris wants to stab himself in the eye.

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean, I didn’t know that I wanted it. How much I wanted it.”

Derek nods. Like he agrees with his mental freak-out over the fact that he has fallen in love with a werewolf twenty two years younger than him. Well, Derek will be understanding. He has been nothing but understanding about everything.

Chris’ heart is lurching painfully and before he can start second-guessing himself again, he is standing up and moving towards him.

“Forgive me.” He whispers.

Derek’s face jerks up and their eyes meet. There is no Stiles or Scott in between them. There is no jealousy to colour their vision. There is no enemy to fight off. No mortal danger to escape from.

Here in this room, in this quiet hour, there are only them.

Chris. Derek. And the truth.

Chris reaches out, because he already had but then had backtracked, like a coward that he is, but there is no turning back when the flower opens its petals to the sun.

His cold hands are warmed by the warmth of Derek’s skin.

Derek closes his eyes and stays still.

“Forgive me my sins and my trespassing. Forgive me for my blindness. Forgive me for I always argued you are so young while I was the one who acted like a fool.”

Derek is shaking his head even before he has finished.

“Derek.” Chris says firmly. “Look at me.”

Derek’s eyes are pale hazel or liquid moss or stormy seas. Chris doesn’t know which, but that he can spend the rest of his pathetic existence counting the changing colours in Derek’s multi-hued irises.

And he can go on saying a thousand things, trying to justify his action. But the buzz under his skin is making its presence felt and Derek’s eyes are drawing him near and Derek’s warmth is inviting him to sin.

“Never ever go on a date. Even a fake one. With anybody.” He blurts out instead.

“Why?” Derek says and he tries to make it careless and misses by a mile.

“I mean with anybody else.”

Derek stares.

 “Are you asking me on a date Argent?” Derek quirks an eyebrow. “Don’t you think it is not enough that we have a date every other week, fighting whatever monster of the week the nemeton draws in?”

“I am asking you on a proper date.” Chris finds himself smiling. “If you have me, considering the way I have treated you of late.”

Derek tilts his head.

“Consider this...”

Then Derek is kissing him.

At first it is all teeth and little technique and Chris knows Derek is angry at him, no matter what he says, and he is justified. So Chris has to make it right. He wraps a hand around Derek’s neck, gently, and curls an arm around his slim waist, drawing him flush. Then he angles his head and dips his tongue into Derek’s hot inviting mouth. After that it is hot breath upon hot breath, tongue sliding upon tongue and eyes closed in utter bliss and electricity in the air.

How has he gone so long without kissing Derek? What madness made him think he could let Derek go? What made him think that Derek may not want him?

Chris is...he feels restless still. It is not enough. He needs more. He just needs...

Derek’s hand slips under his shirt and is spayed on his back. He returns the gesture and Derek shifts on his feet, backing him towards the wall. Before his back hits the wall Chris spins Derek around and cages him with his hands bracketing both sides of his head.

Derek is already pulling his sweater over his head and then is reaching down to divest Chris off his shirt.

“Derek,” Chris’ mouth is watering at the exposed skin in front of him, but he has to ask. “Are you sure?”

Derek nods. His face is serious, but his eyes are bright. Chris wants to be sure because to him Derek is a gift. He wants to unwrap him in leisure and explore every inch. But he needs explicit consent. Especially with Derek.

So he asks again.

“What do you want Derek?”

Derek looks young and nervous.

“I have never been with...” he lowers his eyes, blushing. “...with-with a man.” He stammers.

“All the more reason you need to tell me.” Chris says. “We can slow it down. We don’t need to. Right now.”

“No, I want...” Derek looks up sharply and paws at him. “Please.”

Well, fuck!

“Derek...”

Derek grips his wrists with a force that is just shy of painful and yanks him forward so that he is plastered in front of Derek.

“You didn’t like to see me with Rowina, did you?” Derek whispers against his ear.

Chris doesn’t know why Derek is bringing the painful topic now, but he knows Derek is never intentionally cruel. So he nods, warily.

“Show me then.” Derek’s breath is hot on his earlobe and Chris is painfully hard. “Tell me where you want me and show me. Own me then. So completely that there is no question whom I belong to.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Derek is making him lose every semblance of control.

The infuriating wolf pulls back a little and smirks at him.

“Show me Chris.” He purrs, eyes half-mast and lips red and swollen with kisses.

Chris groans and drops his head on Derek’s collar bone. Then he reaches out, with trembling hands and unbuckles  Derek’s belt. Then the button of the jeans. The zipper. Every little noise sounding like a gunshot and with every little touch Derek’s breath is coming faster than before. He shoves down his pants and the underwear and steps back. Derek steps out of them and stands before him.

Naked.

Chris’ throat dries at the beauty of the man standing before him.

“Tell me where you want me Chris.” Derek’s voice is hoarse.

“Bed.” Chris gulps. “Lie on your back. On the bed.”

Derek complies.

Chris climbs after him and he is still in his jeans.

He arranges Derek making sure he is comfortable and places a pillow under his head.

Derek is following his movement. Eyes impossibly huge and trusting, tugging at Chris’ heartstring.

Chris’ fingers are long and tapered. They seem to be made for this purpose only.

To shackle Derek’s surprisingly delicate wrists in just one hand and pin them above his head.

And the wolf let him, willingly.

Then Chris presses his thumb against the hollow of his wrist and Derek is writhing below him.

“Chris.”

God, nobody has any business to call his name out so sweetly. Pleas and moans and breathless want wrapped up into one syllable. Derek can utter his name like that and he would answer, no matter where he is and follow Derek everywhere, wherever Derek is willing to take him. No questions asked.

Derek is thrumming with a nervous energy and it is infecting Chris. He is forgetting he is on the wrong side of forty five and that his knees give him trouble during full moon nights. He feels invincible with the wolf with all his power and glory pinned under him, completely exposed for his eyes only. This time his nudity is for his alone to enjoy.

Chris’ eyes rakes over the bare torso of the boy beneath him. Derek is holding himself still and is staring at Chris without even blinking, but Chris knows better. He knows from the pretty flush that starts from his cheek and spreads down to his chest that Derek is affected by his unabashed, hungry gaze. That Derek is feeling shy, awkward even for he has never been with a man before and it is all so very new to him. He is used to take charge and be content with do the pleasing rather than be at the receiving end of the scrutiny he is being subjected to. Right now he is held and shackled, opened and explored...

Chris splays his other hand on his belly and there is this hint of a tremor through the incredible muscles.

“I want you to use a safeword.” Chris retains eye contact with him while getting the message across. “If you are ever uncomfortable, just say it. Out loud.”

“Green.” Derek says immediately and then he grins up at him. Sudden and jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

Chris loses his thread of thinking altogether. He brings his mouth lower and kisses Derek breathless. Kisses him filthily, using everything he has ever learnt, kissing just on the side of bruising, like staking a claim on this beautiful boy.

His beautiful boy.

Then he dips his head to nibble at the hollow of his throat, at the pulse point, the collar bones, moving on to the chest. Swirling his tongue on the nipples, taking care of making them hard, making Derek arch upward wordlessly as he follows it immediately with a drag of just the tip of his teeth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth – and Derek is...he is just losing it.

“Colour?” He asks hoarsely as he finally leaves Derek’s wrists and grips his hipbones, digging his nails deeper.

“Green, green, green...please Chris...”

Chris hums against Derek’s belly button and dips his tongue into the inviting pool.

“Fuck...please....touch me Chris.”

“Touch you where?” Chris smirks against Derek’s velvet skim.

Derek’s lips are pressed thin, like he is holding back a frustrated scream.

Chris smirks again, holding down Derek’s hips. Derek has finally started squirming under him.

“You have to tell me Derek.” Chris rakes his fingernails through the sensitive skin of his inner thighs, circling around, but stopping short of touching him where he desperately needs, is silently begging to be touched.

“Come on.” He teases.

“Chris...” He looks up and it is his turn to grin. Derek seems close to be rendered incoherent.

“Please...I...touch...my dick...” Derek’s voice is tiny and his face is blazing, but his eyes are shining like jewels.

 “That is more like it, but no.” Chris says decisively.

“Wha...what?”

“Spread you legs for me Derek.” Chris orders. “Let me see you. All of you and then we will see.”

Derek’s head falls back on the pillow and he complies reluctantly.

Chris takes in the sight like a voyeur and he is suddenly this close to coming then and there.

As expected Derek is utterly beautiful.

Everything from his cock to the dusting of ebony hair around the cock to the pink opening looking so inviting in the scant light of the room – everything is so pretty that it is surreal. It is like beauty is just a standard based on Derek’s every little feature. It is like he is the perfection itself and to think that he is giving himself over willingly to Chris.

That he is trusting Chris, with his heart, with his body and his tortured soul. He is giving Chris permission to use him as he thinks fit and that is just...Chris’ eyes are watering suddenly. What can he say, he is just an old, sentimental fool.

But speaking of old, he remembers his promise to show Derek and he does.

Chris’ hands are on Derek’s butt again as he holds them apart and places a kiss on his opening. Derek jolts in shock. He is suddenly, fully erect and dripping pre-cum even though Chris hasn’t even touched him there.

“God you smell so good.” Chris is not even sure if he says it or he is just mumbling incoherently. “Colour?”

“Green.” Derek replies breathlessly. He is bunching the bed-sheet on both sides with his knuckles gone white.

“Have you every been rimmed Derek?”

Derek looks at him with eyes glazed over. His mouth is slack and it doesn’t look like he has any strength to give a response.

Finally he shakes his head.

“Good.” Chris says for it _is_ good. He is the first one to touch Derek like this. He is the first one to see him coming apart at seams under his hands like this.

He peppers kisses around Derek’s hole proprietarily and then he starts with light stroke of his tongue, just the edge, rimming him slow and steady.

Derek’s body is arching upward again and his hips have started moving in spite of itself.

Chris immediately stops.

“Stay.” He says sternly, digging his nails into Derek’s skin.

Derek stops moving, but he is trembling now. Chris resumes his slow torture and he knows since he is going to burn in the seventh circle of hell, why not do it thoroughly.

He drives his tongue inside Derek’s hole now warm and soft and pliable under his ministration and Derek screams his name this time.

Chris is yet to touch Derek’s dick.

“Chris...p-pl-please...”

Chris swirls his tongue around Derek’s opening once again before looking up and then he is immediately surging up.

For Derek is sobbing.

“Hey..hey...shhhhh...Derek....shhhh...” Chris cradles Derek’s face and kisses his mouth and curses himself inward. He should have known better than to trust Derek with safewords. God, Chris has his doubts if Derek understands the concept of consent let alone a safeword.

He presses his forehead against his and tries to soothe him however best he can and his own dick has gone soft with the way Derek’s whole frame is shaking with silent sobs.

“God, I am so sorry...you should just...why didn’t you use the safeword you idiot? Please baby, just stop crying....”

“No...it’s just...” Derek sniffs and shakes his head. “I am ok. I am fine.”

Tell that to the big fat tears rolling down his cheeks!

Jesus, this boy is so insufferable.

“Talk to me Derek.” Chris pins him with a look. “Talk to me please baby boy.”

Derek is avoiding his eyes.

Chris sighs. “Please Derek. For my sanity.”

Derek looks at him at that.

“Kate.” He says simply.

“I hate to tell you, but I need more than that Derek.” And Chris really hates it. Hates his sister with every fibre of his being and he hates to make Derek say it aloud the ways she used to torture him in the name of love.

“Kate...would not touch me...until I beg her.” Derek starts haltingly. “Will make me go out of my mind, touching me elsewhere, messaging me with scented oil and playing with...” Derek’s lips are thinned again and he is looking away, face flushed. “...with my nipples.”

“No.” Chris cups his face, forcing him to meet his eyes.

“Don’t ever hide from me. There is nothing to hide.”

“Some days she would not touch me at all. Just leave me like that.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“For a second I thought you will never touch me. That you too like her...” Derek’s breath hitches and Chris is shaking his head. “I know you will never,” Derek reassures quickly, “but I am kind of broken you see. Kate broke me.”

Derek is crying again. Silently this time and this somehow make it even worse than before. Chris just wants to wrap him in a fluffy blanket and hide away from the world. He will give his life willingly if it means he can spare Derek even a moment of unhappiness for God knows he doesn’t deserve any of it.

He is in love with this boy.

“You are wrong. You are...God, you have no idea...you are just perfect.” He blurts out for it is easier than saying _I love you_.

Derek is still looking at him through wet eyelashes forlornly.

“Please trust me on this Derek. You have given me so much of it already. Just trust me when I say you are beautiful. You are my beautiful boy. Kindest and sweetest and fairest of them all. You are just...hell...do you think I am in a habit of waxing poetic on random werewolves I used to hunt?”

Derek smiles at that. It is broken and it is tiny, but he will take it.

“My beautiful, beautiful boy...” Chris rakes his hands through Derek’s hair who closes his eyes and turns his face to nuzzle into his palm. “My magnificent wolf.”

“I am...” Derek whispers quietly, privately, “...your boy.” He meets his eyes. “Your wolf.”

It breaks Chris’ heart altogether.

“And I am your human.”

Derek’s eyes brighten then and this time he pulls Chris into a kiss. Chris goes willingly and loses himself in the vortex of feeling, of the feeling of electricity dancing at the edge of his skin as Derek’s claws rake lines across his sides, lazily, without breaking his skin.

“Are you planning on getting this off?” Derek huffs as his hands still on the buttons of his jeans.

“Are you sure?” Chris raises an eyebrow at him. “We can take it slow. We have all the time in the....holy sh-shit...”

Derek has lowered his zipper and raked a single claw against his erection through his boxer brief.

Derek smirks up at him.

“Off with the clothes and fuck me like you mean it.” He orders. “No more playing around.”

“Ok,” Chris raises himself from Derek and makes a short work of his jeans and underwear. Derek’s eyes rake over his body, laser-focused and Chris fights down a pleasant shiver.

“Do you want to ride...”

“I want you to hold me down and fuck into me.” Derek breathes, raising one eyebrow. “Do you think you are up to the task?”

Shit!

Chris swallows.

Does the boy even know what he is doing to him, the innumerable little ways he is wrecking him, changing him for good, rearranging his skin and bones so that he is turned into this being who is born to please a werewolf named Derek Hale, rearranging his heart in order to fall so completely head over heels that he has never thought possible.

From the innocence in his eyes, from the smirk that is going for cocky and failing spectacularly for it is too sweet to be anything else, from the way he sprawls on the bed taking up too much space unabashedly, Chris knows Derek doesn’t have a clue!

He doesn’t have a clue how he is slowly ruining him, taking him apart piece by piece, and how he can’t even bring himself to feel sorry.

“Turn over.” He orders hoarsely. “Lie on your stomach.”

Derek obeys instantly and throws a grin over his shoulder as Chris arranges a pillow under his hipbones.

And apparently all it needs for Chris’ libido to have Derek sprawled out like that – naked and trusting, and he is rock hard again.

He would have shaken his head in exasperation, but he is almost resigned now. Surprisingly it doesn’t fill him with panic anymore. It just fills him with awe.

Chris cannot help caressing Derek’s back with soft hands, cannot help tracing the contour of the dark tattoo standing in sharp contrast against the pale and glistening skin. Like Derek’s everything, it is beautiful too.

Penance.

Chris knows.

For it means horrible pain, because Chris understands the anatomy of a werewolf and knows Derek’s skin should have healed the triskelion right off it.

He has done something after tattooing it on his skin traditionally.

Burn it up most likely.

And how much that must have hurt!

Chris peppers kisses on his back.

Derek is almost vibrating out of his skin with nervousness even after putting up a cocky front. Chris knows Derek so well and he knows his fronts, but the miracle happens when he lowers his guard and provides a glimpse of the extraordinary person that he is underneath.

Chris places a hand on Derek’s neck and feels the fine tremor.

Anticipation?

Fear?

Arousal?

Maybe all three?

“Colour?” He enquires in a hushed tone, for Derek is right. The playtime is over and this is something solemn...something sacred. After this there is no going back. And while a part of him is giving off the warning how this is all too fast, Chris knows the pace their story has progressed is glacial. So this is long overdue, something meant to be. He doesn’t question it anymore.

“Green.” Derek mumbles against the pillow.

Derek’s breath is coming too fast for his liking and so Chris takes his time to soothe down the wolf. He pets him, behind his ear, between his shoulder blades, nuzzling into the soft hair at the neck, pinning him down by the wrists again bracketing his head, uttering a steady stream of utter nonsense...

“Shhh...I got you...shhhh...my sweet, darling boy....so good for me...so fucking beautiful...I will take care of you....I will...”

And Derek’s breathing evens out gradually.

“Green.” He says without prompting.

Chris slips a lubed finger in his ass crack and then slowly into his hole, guided solely by the little hitches in Derek’s breathing.

Derek is lying impossibly still.

“Breathe, Derek,” Chris instructs and starts caressing the inside of his hole, prying it open, ever so gently.

Derek sucks in a deep, trembling breath and Chris is increasing his speed.

“More...Chris...more...”

Chris chuckles against Derek’s skin and kisses the back of his head.

Derek hasn’t even tried to touch himself during the whole time.

Chris decides to reward him and thrusts another finger inside.

Derek throws back his head and moans as Chris finds his prostrate.

Then he is pumping his hands in and out in a quicksilver rhythm and Derek is uttering small, sweet sounds. Chris is not worried though for those are sounds of pleasure, not pain.

“Chris just...please...take me...take me now. I am ready.” Derek is mumbling brokenly.

Chris adds another finger and Derek is loosened up around him. He has gone deep and boneless, sinking without an anchor, willingly. Derek’s skin is stretched taut and he is just hovering over this side of losing his mind in a good way.

Then Chris is doing something to his prostrate and Derek is suddenly wide awake and he is all but snarling.

“Fuck me Chris. I will heal. Just put your dick into me.”

“Shhhh....soon.”

Chris is still keeping up his maddeningly slow pace. He is occasionally scissoring his fingers to stretch him wide open.

Derek is turning into liquid gold, hot molten lava flowing from the hollow of his wrists where Chris keeps on touching him to his groin. He moves his hips, desperate for a friction...for anything.

Only when Derek looks seconds away from wolfing out and grab hold of Chris and ride him raw that Chris finally lines himself against him. Derek tenses up momentarily before going slack again as Chris’s fingers graze against his wrists.

And then Chris is inside and it burns unpleasantly until...it doesn’t. Chris takes out his dick only to slam into Derek again.

_Somebody is whimpering and Derek thinks it is him._

_“I have got you...got you...my  baby boy...I have...just...so pretty...so damn pretty...so good for me...”_

_Chris fucks in and out of Derek in a steady rhythm and Derek is just...he can’t. Why is he? What is he? Where is his mooring? Why does he feel so safe when he is floating so? Why....sweet baby Jesus...._

_Derek pants and Chris is a weight on him. On his back and his thighs and in his strange caresses that Derek didn’t know he needed, his petting of his hair and his concerned glances, his constantly checking if Derek is alright, his eyes....his fucking eyes and his Goddamn voice..._

_He needs. He just needs and he says it brokenly over and over again. He thinks. Derek is. For the first time in his life. He just is. And there is nothing before and nothing after. Only the moment. And this moment is truth. This moment is hurt. And this moment is soothed. Rough lips raining kisses on him. Rough hands gentling him. Shackling him down. Over and under. As if he is the fragile one of the two. Like he is the breakable one. Like he is the one to be protected at all cost. So far from what he imagined. Derek is kept and hold. He is kept, kept, kept and never let go. Never. Derek is just this. He can. He is...._

_“I love you.” Derek says._

_Chris makes a sound at the back of his throat._

_The bowstring snaps and Derek is seeing stars. He is seeing the fucking galaxy and Chris still hasn’t taken his dick in his hands yet._

_He comes. Helplessly._

_Chris swears something above him and he is coming too inside him, in hot little spurts._

_Chris collapses on him._

_“I love you too baby boy.” He murmurs against his neck._

_Clear and simple._

_“And I am not done with you yet.” Chris’ voice is thick, like he has been crying. Derek doesn’t question him or steal a glance for he understands._

Chris _is_ crying. Without realising it. For he has never ever felt more connected with anybody in his life. He is...he feels so alive right now, just like the warm body under him.

Why would he ever leave this? Where will he even go? This is what binds him to here and now. This amazing person breathing in sync with him.

He belongs.

To him.

Utterly.

Forever.

He hears Derek, sinking down with a contented sigh.

“What will you do?” Derek asks without looking back at him.

“Oh I can think of one or two things.” Chris says, clearing his throat, trying to keep his voice light. “I am yet to touch your dick as per your explicit request. So...”

He feels Derek smiling into the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, published my original work. If you like my fic, don't forget to drop by at my website at   
> [www.theauthorkamalika.org](https://www.theauthorkamalika.org/)

**Author's Note:**

> Drop by at my website if you want to say hi: 
> 
> <https://www.theauthorkamalika.org/>


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